Email Author Alexis Soloski

2006 Stories by Alexis Soloski

• Genocide He Wrote

  published September 19, 2006

  Even allowing that your play concerns mass murder, it's rather daring to kill off your main character in the first two minutes. But that's how... More >>

• Stress Test

  published September 12, 2006

  Not until 1980 did psychiatrists certify post-traumatic stress disorder as a mental illness. Diagnostic criteria include exposure to a traumatic... More >>

• Going to Extremes

  published September 12, 2006

  With Muslim extremism so much in the news, there's something almost quaint about watching a man move toward the passé fanaticism of the... More >>

• Dear Mister President

  published September 5, 2006

  According to many conspiracy buffs, anti-Castro Cubans shot John Kennedy. Or Chicago mobsters did it. Or rebel CIA agents. Or Ari Onassis. One... More >>

• Loving the Alien

  published September 5, 2006

  Under current U.S. law, the government may issue green cards to family members of citizens, those with permanent employment in the U.S., and those... More >>

• Curious George

  published August 22, 2006

  Robert Burton, in his delirious diagnostics manual The Anatomy of Melancholy , described "hypochondriachal or flatuous" melancholy as... More >>

• Taking the Plunge

  published August 15, 2006

  In Norway, people don't commit suicide more frequently than in other countries. (Indeed, the nation has one of the lower rates in the West,... More >>

• Lab Brats

  published August 8, 2006

  Research question: In The Dispute, a 1744 comedy by Pierre Marivaux, translated by Neil Bartlett, a prince unleashes a bizarre... More >>

• Go Big Green

  published August 8, 2006

  In 1907, a French temperance league known as the Croix Bleue called for a ban on the enchanting aperitif absinthe. The league circulated a... More >>

• One Song Glory

  published August 1, 2006

  When singer-songwriter Sam arrives at his partner Brenda's apartment with guitar in hand on Christmas Eve, he hasn't come caroling. Besides, for a... More >>

• Wilde, Wilde East

  published August 1, 2006

  After Algernon finishes massacring a minuet on his pianoforte, he turns to his butler, Lane, and remarks, "I don't play accurately—anyone can... More >>

• Swing Out Sisters

  published July 25, 2006

  On an ecstatically ugly stage adorned with Day-Glo flowers and shag platforms, a woman in an orange shift and bouffant 'do croons Dusty... More >>

• Bardcore Punk

  published July 25, 2006

  When Shakespeare proposed that music is the food of love, he very likely didn't have punk rock in mind. But if the food of love involves a... More >>

• Rough Rider

  published July 18, 2006

  Though a most dramatic statesman, Theodore Roosevelt had little understanding of drama itself. Since his student days at Harvard, he had delighted... More >>

• Odds and Monsters

  published July 18, 2006

  Writer-composer Robert Mitchell has not created a monster, nor has he created much of a show with Frankenstein, the Musical, a mostly... More >>

• Tales Out of School

  published July 11, 2006

  Editor's note: No Child has moved to the Barrow Street Theater (27 Barrow Street, 212-239-6200). Alexis Soloski's review, reprinted... More >>

• Love, the Magician

  published July 11, 2006

  The conjurer Harry Houdini once wrote that "what the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes." Houdini's pronouncement on sleight of hand... More >>

• Main Event

  published July 11, 2006

  New York's sewers include some 6,600 miles of mains and pipes—and very possibly alligators, but they have not, until now, also boasted a... More >>

• Cat Fights

  published July 4, 2006

  Editor's note: Obie-winner Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore is now playing at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street,... More >>

• The Plot Thickens

  published July 4, 2006

  John B. Keane's The Field, a 1964 drama now enjoying its New York debut, concerns rural Irishmen who lie, coerce, and kill for the sake of... More >>

• Levitt or Leave It

  published June 27, 2006

  We don't typically quibble with Leo Tolstoy, but are unhappy families really so different? Or are they rather like the endless rows of postwar... More >>

• Tramps and Thieves

  published June 27, 2006

  Fifty years ago, on the occasion of the New York premiere of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Brooks Atkinson famously described the... More >>

• Early Bud Special

  published June 27, 2006

  For a healthy morning meal, the USDA advocates a combination of fruit, whole grains, and low-fat dairy. It does not recommend beer for breakfast,... More >>

• To Heiress Human

  published June 20, 2006

  Lily may exclaim of her lover Gaston, "I want you as a crook. I love you as a crook. I worship you as a crook. Steal, swindle, rob!" But ... More >>

• Gimme Shelter

  published June 20, 2006

  Mark has outfitted his underground shelter with all the necessaries—battery- powered radio, bottled water, propane stove, blankets, and now,... More >>